Surfwear With Street Cred

Jack O'Neill Originals Collection Premier Shirt

With the rare exception of select brands like Warriors of Radness (who perfectly channel the "go F yourself" attitude of South Santa Monica's skate punks), surfwear has taken a serious turn for the worse over the past two decades. What was once a subtle, authentic style populated by Pendleton shirts and Huarache sandals has evolved over the past half century into a 13 billion-dollar industry defined by obnoxiously fluorescent beachwear.

This summer, O'Neill injected an antidote into surf shops on both coasts with the Jack O'Neill Originals Collection, a 22-piece line celebrating 60 years of innovation from its brand patriarch, a man who invented the first wetsuit and changed cold-water sports forever. Our pick of the litter, the Premier tee, represents everything we look for in a T-shirt – it's slim-fitting (as if tailored for the days before America's obesity epidemic), woven from 100 percent cotton, and, best of all, prewashed, so it won't shrink. The subtle screen-printed logo is a throwback of the perfect variety, displaying the address of O'Neill's original surf shop – the world's first, actually – which opened in Santa Cruz, California, in 1952.